An Unlocking Spell
by forsalazarssake
Summary: When Hermione's trunk gets accidentally mistaken and swapped with another student's trunk, it's just bloody typical that it's the boy who despises her and confuses her more than anyone, and he really is the last person she wants to see on her first night back at school. Dramione fic. Please review/fave if you like it! More chapters will follow!
1. Alohomora

The worst day ever had begun when she crept up the stairs to the Gryffindor girl's dormitories after everyone else had gone to bed, and opened her trunk to find it wasn't her bloody trunk.

She had scrambled up the stairs, a bit woozy after the fire whiskey she had been sipping on throughout the night, up to the room she shared with 4 other girls who were already conked out. Looking around at her friends, they weren't exactly sleeping beauties. After they had all passed out, she found them all with their makeup smeared across their faces either due to drunken crying or other slightly more promiscuous activities, no doubt also fuelled by alcohol. They all looked like hot messes.

She had crept up the stairs quietly, having taken her shoes off in the common room so that when her delicate feet hopped up the stairs, they did not make the usual clunking sound which would make a deep echo and wake everyone in Gryffindor tower. Upon entering her room, she had stubbed her toe on Parvati's bed and has to bite her lip to swallow the "For Godric's bloody sake!" that was desperately trying to escape her mouth.

She then limped over to her bed to find her trunk next to her bed and in her tired and slightly tipsy stupor did not recognise that this was not in fact her trunk. It was dark, strong, old wood and the lid of the trunk was covered in leather. The leather was a dark, expensive black with silver metalwork and intricately detailed patterns carved into the metal.

Flicking her wand, she whispered the passcode she had locked her trunk with yesterday evening when she had finished packing her clothes and books for Hogwarts. Then she had gone to bed, in preparation for the long train journey from Platform 9 ¾ which she would embark on tomorrow. Like she had done yesterday, all she wanted to do now was sleep. There was nothing wrong with the traditional Gryffindor party, held in the Common Room on the first night of term to welcome the new students, as well as everyone else, back to Hogwarts. As far as she knew, every house had a party, and Gryffindor's were always rumoured to be the best. Or at least the most raucous.

But it was times like these, when she was exhausted, had not really enjoyed the party as much as everyone else and was slightly tipsy, that she just wished she could manage to cast a simple bloody unlocking spell.

Flicking her wand again she whispered "Yule Ball", smiling nostalgically, having chosen her password wistfully yesterday. She often thought about the Yule Ball, how her and Krum had danced, how she had wanted Ron to ask her so badly and he hadn't and how Draco kept pausing to stare at her for just a second too long as he scanned the room.

That evening, she had been one of the last left at the Ball, and when Krum had excused himself as he would have to be up for early Quidditch training, she had stayed. Perhaps it was because she was afraid of going back to the Common Room and facing her two best friends who she had scolded like a mother. Or perhaps it was him.

* * *

><p>The crowd had been dying down, leaving a few stragglers for the last song. She had moved over to the food table and turned to see the band announcing they would be playing one last song, a slow dance. The last few partiers were deterred and even Neville and Ginny hadn't wanted to stay for the last song, all deciding that the situation might be too awkward and romantic for their liking. "Imagine my parents faces when I tell them that I, Hermione Granger, was the last one standing at a party" she chuckled to herself…"They're going to think wizarding parties are awfully dull."<p>

She had continued to snack on the frozen bites at the table with the sound of the rock group behind her singing a ballad for the empty dance floor.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that Granger" Draco growled. "Just because everyone else seems to be unable to appreciate the traditions of these events, does not mean I don't."

"Oh, you sound like a pretentious twat Malfoy, one that is just regurgitating what his daddy has told him" sighed Hermione, rolling her eyes.

His cold eyes sharpened: she saw him losing control of himself in those eyes. Their grey storm raged, but he clenched his fist and remained composed. Breathing heavily under the labour of not snapping at her he looked so powerful to her. Like he could break her.

"Would you dance with me?" he offered, snapping at her, trying to restrain the animosity he felt towards her. He held out his hand like a Pureblood was taught, when he was taught etiquette and dancing and how to play chess (the wizarding kind), and looked at her with pure loathing. The jutted hand was in fact a challenge, he knew she wouldn't accept his offer. Nonetheless he would have fulfilled his 'duty' to be the gentleman. After having satisfied his need to follow traditions and then knowing he would be able to blame the failure of his efforts on this uncooperative Mudblood, he thought he could slink away and continue with his life as usual.

Only Hermione was clever. A brilliantly, clever witch who knew that was what he wanted. He wanted more than anyone to slink away from this conversation, to avoid any interaction with her because she knew that he knew that if he did not, he may start to think of her as a someone… and that could be dangerous in his world where there were only two sides, and any blurring of the lines between these sides would be unsafe. But his own stupid traditions, the same which had degraded her in his mind, also led to him having to offer her a dance.

He challenged her. She gritted her teeth and accepted.

"Why thankyou, Draco" she sing-songed_. He would hate her using his first name. Ha! _"I would love to!"

A look of confusion transformed into sheer horror on his face, his forehead scrunching and his mouth warping into a straight line. He almost bared his teeth but seemed to remember he was too civilised for that.

Her warm hand draped itself into his cold firm grip, as he led her onto the dance floor. A quarter of the song was already over when he took her waist with one palm and her little hand in the other and began to swirl her, spin her, twist her. His resting hand on her waist made her blush and they were both overly aware of the minimal space left between them due to the fact that the dance demanded it.

But seeing his stony expression throughout, she not only felt the weight of his hand but the weight of the war…the weight of his prejudices and the weight of the knowledge that she would ever be accepted by his kind; Purebloods. Though his technique was flawless and he never stood on her toes like Ron always did when she had helped him practice, she found herself unhappy. He was not enjoying himself so neither was she.

But if he was unhappy, shouldn't she be happy with this small victory over him? After all she had done this to irritate him, though she must say she was surprised that he had called her bluff. She felt a dizzying coolness, knowing that all he was thinking about was her "foul" blood status, as he called it.

In the dimly lit hall, their dance was coming to an end. Her tendrils of hair had come loose from the intricate hairstyle which she had finally let Lavender Brown pull and tug her bushy hair into, and Draco watched them unfurl knowing from years of admiring them that they could not be controlled by anyone. Much like the owner  
>of those curls, they were loosening, falling apart before his eyes as he saw her smile waver.<p>

She was looking at him expectantly. What the fuck did she want? She didn't expect him to talk to her while they danced did she? "I'm not bloody Gilderoy Lockhart" he thought to himself.

But then she surprised him, as he saw the famous Gryffindor joyfulness, which he so famously hated, return to her eyes. Just when he though he had knocked her down this witch decided to perk back up again. Fan-fucking-tastic.

But she did not speak as he expected her to. She stayed quiet. This time she was challenging him, daring him to talk and taunting him for not having the courage to speak up. _Typical, always yapping on about bloody bravery and courage._

"What are you looking at then?" he snarled, still spinning her slowly across the dance floor.

"Just thinking about the irony that the same warped views and traditions that define me as a Mudblood-" she paused and frowned as he flinched at the word. Normally she wouldn't have noticed as he retained his mask of composure, but being pressed up against him made her acutely aware of the small shudder he felt when she said the word.

She repeated, "The same traditions that call me a Mudblood are also telling you that you have to dance with one. The irony is rather entertaining."

"Very" he snapped back at her, clearly trying to keep conversation to a minimum.

"Sad really how much conventions control your life" she muttered, realising she had wished for a long time that she could be friends with Malfoy. The fact that he was the most intelligent wizard in his classes had made Hermione secretly want to know him more, but upon realising his hatred for her kind she had quickly hidden that desire.

She honestly thought that he was controlled by his family's views? He certainly was not as warped as his father and did not worship the ground Voldemort stood on. He knew what Voldemort really was: a murderer, but he also understood that the intelligent place to be in the war was on this murderers side. But how dare Granger even say that!

"I asked you because I wanted to," he bellowed. "I am not controlled by anyone."

The fury in his eyes fired up again and she believed him.

Then they both realised his confession...

He wanted to dance with her.

She was the exception to the rule.

They both looked shiftily at their feet, over the others shoulder, even gazed up at the ceiling and pretended to marvel at the night sky. He knew this was uninteresting in comparison to what was standing right in front of him but he kept his jaw locked and his head high.

He would not break.

The song had ended and she had wandered back to her dormitory, wondering whether she had concocted a potion incorrectly and had inhaled too many of the rotten-smelling fumes.

The next day she concluded that she had clearly been delusional.

* * *

><p>Pulling herself back to reality, she thwacked her wand a couple of times as though a quick tap would fix the problem. She spent the next 5 minutes furiously whispering "Yule Ball" in different voices, pitches and even accents. After failing miserably at an Irish accent she sighed and resorted to trying a beginners level spell: "Alohomora"<p>

"Bloody typical" she barked to herself as the lock clicked and the lid flipped open, "the simplest bloody spell."

She began rummaging through the items in the trunk, desperately trying to find her pyjamas so that she could struggle into bed and forget her incompetence.

Then it finally dawned on her alcohol debilitated mind.

This wasn't her case…

She nearly peed her pants when she realised what she would have to do next. Having faced a fair number of monstrous creatures in her time at Hogwarts, she knew that this would be the most perilous adventure of all. She would take the fangs of the three headed dog, a herd of centaurs or a dragon over the adversary she would now have to face. She dreaded this even more with every step she took down the stairs from her dormitory knowing that to wake this creature from their slumber was very risky, and at this time of night she would surely be executed.

McGonagall.

She had to face McGonagall.

She could just imagine the livid look on her face, the curlers in her hair pulling her face tight and causing the glare she would shoot Hermione to be twice as cutting, as well as the dressing gown she would wear as formidably as her teaching robes.

Hermione was so screwed.

A sleep deprived McGonagall was as exhausting as dealing with moaning Myrtle. But she had to do it… unless she wanted to sleep in the clothes she was wearing now and then wear them tomorrow as well, which surely wouldn't go down well with the rest of the students who would be wearing uniform and not muggle clothes.

Godric help her.

She trudged across the Common Room which was now covered in cups and glass bottles, confetti and random belongings which people would claim in the morning and stopped when she heard a raised voice booming outside the portrait hole, clearly irate and arguing with 'The Fat Lady'. She heard the intruder thumping the portrait and thinking it was just a drunk Gryffindor who was too drunk to remember the new password, she crossed the room and opened the entrance.

It was in fact a drunk student.

Not the kind she expected though, as she saw Malfoy standing outside the Gryffindor common room, breathing heavily from his heavy blows to the portrait. He leaned against the doorway and regained his composure, straightening his back and sharpening his glare.

_Had he come here to see her?_ She glanced down to the sleeves of his dark shirt which he had rolled up, exposing his forearms and thought of how safe she had felt in his strong grip.

As he opened his mouth to begin shouting again she interrupted with a hiss, "Draco! Shut the hell up!"

He had stopped thumping the door and stepped back, or perhaps you would say toppled back in his drunk state.

Now she just looked at him, revelling in the fact that he seemed weaker like this. Without the barriers he put up normally, it was quite fascinating to watch him. A flash of confusion wiped across his face and was quickly smothered by a look of resignation.

Well, his reaction could have been worse, she supposed.

He was ambivalent to her, unsure of whether to taunt her or to smirk playfully. He knew what he wanted to do, but he also knew what he should do.

Fortunately, Draco's lack of aggression towards her meant that she could get to the bottom of why this prat had found Gryffindor Tower. As quickly as possible.

_Why was he here? Did he think about her at all? No don't be silly Hermione._

Draco still looked shocked that it was her that answered his ravings from outside the portrait hole. He clearly didn't expect her, so clearly he didn't come looking for her specifically.

Being drunk, she realised she was swaying.

_Or was that him that was swaying?_

_Oh crap it was definitely him. _

Suddenly, as if hit by a tripping jinx, he lurched forward and fell onto her. She was suddenly very aware of how close his body was. His breathe tickled her ear and she shuddered as his lips grazed her neck as he bowed his head further into her.

Burying his face in her massively curly hair, unable to face the shame he felt, he tried to ignore the nagging prejudices which he had recently begun to question. He felt her squirm slightly and reach her arms under his to grip his back as he kissed her neck.

She attracted him, like a moth to a beautifully damaging flame.

That's what this was.

She was damaging him.

Damaging the fragile ideas and assumptions which worked as the foundations of all of his even more fragile prejudices. Everything he was taught by his parents, she was making him unlearn.

_Why hadn't he just waited until he was sober?_


	2. The Games Begin

**Author's Notes: To be honest I'm not as happy with this chapter as the last, but read on and review/fave if you enjoyed reading it!**

**Also at the bottom I will do some 'fun facts' about some of the things I have made up/ introduced in this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: Pretty obvious that JKR hasn't written this.**

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><p>Draco furled his hands around her shoulders. He meant to push her away immediately but she was pressing her body to him greedily. Instead he held her there, tensed as he tried to force his rigid chest away from hers.<p>

But it didn't want to move.

It taunted him as his own senses gave way to a lusty haze.

_She's a mudblood. You can't kiss her-you aren't allowed to kiss her!_

_You won't._

_Mudblood, mudblood, mudblood! Remember it._

_She's a mudblood._

Bitterly, he remembered his family's loyalty to the Dark Lord.

He almost snarled remembering it, although he could not be sure whether at her blood status or at his family's ideas.

He had snarled at his confusion.

He did not often feel confused, it was an unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation.

Hermione was the source of this confusion, he was sure. Here he was, standing in the portrait hole to Gryffindor Tower, wanting to kiss this witch and he couldn't.

Why did he want something which was inferior?

He had managed to ignore the fact that she was the most talented witch in their classes, choosing not to question his father's theory that the teachers were more sympathetic towards muggle-borns as they were so obviously unable to do magic. At the time his father had said "It's cruel really, misleading those who are unworthy, to believe they will ever be truly capable of magic."

"But Hermione can do magic?" Draco had thought. As much as Draco hated to admit it, she definitely belonged in the Wizarding world, being the only one to best him in all his classes.

He couldn't just ignore that kind of evidence.

But surely the tales his mother used to tell him about the ugliness of Mudbloods had to be true? How their blood turns to mud because of its inability to handle the power that they have 'stolen'. Their mortal bodies apparently corrupt due to their unnatural exposure to magic.

Hermione definitely wasn't ugly. Of all things to fall back on to prop up his beliefs, the children's tales his mother told him were not the strongest evidence of Hermione being lesser.

He knew she was striking, there was no use denying it to himself. He would never tell her of course, but he admitted this to himself often. Often enough to make his mind question whether there was any truth behind his mother's scary stories, and by extension whether there was any truth behind the whole idea of impure blood.

So far he had not found much truth, which made his head hurt.

It was as though everything he knew was being jarred, and seemed warped.

Somehow, wrong.

Her hair wriggled around her head in all directions, fraying outwards in a beautiful golden crown of wispy ringlets. The tendrils whirled outwards and these long spirals thinned towards the end of the strands of hair. They framed her olive toned face perfectly and short baby curls often fell into her large eyelash-framed eyes.

Oh in the name of the Bloody Baron, he needed to get away.

Her mere presence was too intoxicating; he didn't know what he would do if this went any further.

It was his instinct for self-preservation that led him to act out…

He laughed spitefully in her face and pushed her a step back, though he did not act forcefully enough for his liking.

_Get her away from you quickly._ The best thing Draco could think to do was to hurt her pride so that she didn't try to edge back towards him like he wanted her to.

"As if Granger. I swear to Salazar you really are as desperate as everyone says you are" he snarled half-heartedly.

Taken aback, her face fell.

Just as quickly, she patted down the curls he had disturbed by nuzzling into her and brushed off the creases in her shirt.

She straightened herself up piece by piece and worked methodically to readjust herself. After she straightened her back she finally reworked her face into a blank canvas, showing neither empathy nor passion, and certainly not even a flicker of hurt.

It didn't take long for her to get over that one Malfoy noted, secretly annoyed that she was not more affected by his brutal rejection.

"So what did you come here for then?"

She interrupted his thoughts. He then realised why he was even at her door.

How did he get here? His thoughts had just seemed to lead him to her, but then he remembered why he had been so frantic to wake anyone he could find in the Gryffindor Common Room.

* * *

><p>He remembered that he had been storming from the Dungeons where just a few minutes ago he had been in the Slytherin Houses Common Room. After attending the formal dinner party which was always held in the Common Room on the first day of term, where he had glided between small talk and people drinking their beverages, he had stood to leave.<p>

He had had quite enough of this.

During previous years he would be the last to leave. He had actually enjoyed the company of his housemates, he had socialised and climbed his way up the social ladder during these events. Not that he needed to, he now realised.

His achievement of popularity was nothing to do with people liking him.

That was just the way of life in Slytherin.

People got close to you because they admired you or they wanted your protection. They liked your blood status and the prestige which came with being a friend of the Malfoy boy.

It was just last year that he realised how false everyone was. The end of his fourth year had been catastrophic for his beliefs about society… about everything.

One dance with Hermione had him questioning his the societal structures he had known all his life.

It was pathetic.

He was pathetic.

But apparently so were the views he used to hold, and still had to pretend to agree with. _They were so pathetic._

At the end of last year he got lost in this train of thought. He had spiralled into an existential crisis and distanced himself from his friends. He had told them it was stress from work and they had not realised it was a lie; that's when he realised that the world he was living in was fake. It was all false. He had fake friends, fake beliefs, fake blood status.

Worse was that he had to lie. He had to act as though he was still as mislead as all of his other housemates. He had to pretend that he hadn't worked it out.

But he had. Hiding his true identity, as a…Blood Traitor, because yes he was a Blood Traitor, meant denying himself.

Hiding away like this was horrible. It wasn't brave.

But, he reminded himself that, he wasn't sorted into Gryffindor for a reason.

But tonight he was sick of pretending to admire and to esteem these people who were so mislead. He sneered at the fact they had been deceived. But he hadn't been.

After being so invested in an idea for years it really weighed down on him that he didn't have the same trusting naivety in his blood status, in Voldemort, as the rest of the Slytherin's. He didn't have their freedom, their 'knowledge' that they were innately superior.

He slunk up the stairs, hoping that in his fifth year he would manage to cover up where his true loyalties lay. He would be sly and cunning… after all, he was a Slytherin.

Swinging the door to his dormitory wide and strolling into his room, he was relieved that Crabbe and Goyle weren't up from the party yet.

He had grown fond of them during his first years, and even now when their unreasonable prejudices against muggle-borns and blood traitors clouded their judgements, he still called them friends. After all, he had always known they were dullards who were only capable of following orders. Their unfaltering loyalty to him, however misplaced, was still endearing to him.

It was just such a shame, thought Malfoy. This whole war was such a shame.

"Who's fucking case is this?" he growled, looking down at the chestnut coloured wood which had a tag on it. Draco took a quick glance round the room, scanning for his case elsewhere but when he didn't find it he knelt down and flipped the name label in his fingers.

It read:

'Fifth year Gryffindor girls' dormitories.'

Did this look like the Gryffindor dormitories? Which idiot apparated this to the wrong place?

So if this was the case of a Gryffindor, did that mean they had his case?

Being a very private person the very idea that someone else had his trunk was alarming enough, and the fact he had not charmed a passcode onto his luggage this year made him panic further. Someone from his rival house had his trunk and all of his belongings. Fuck.

He looked down at the trunk and withdrew his wand, "Alohomora" he whispered while grinding his teeth. No success.

He wracked his brains for other locking spells they might have learnt. There was the Passcode Locking Spell but they weren't taught the counter-spell for that as it encouraged "invasions of privacy" and "theft" according to the School Board, and therefore it was not on the syllabus. However, over the summer his father had given him some extra reading as he always did. Draco had completed some reading from his father's library and he vaguely remembered a more advanced unlocking spell than Alohomora.

"Recludaliquid" he muttered while swinging his wand in an intricate pattern he only vaguely remembered. Draco released a sigh of relief as the trunk opened with a click

Not wanting to invade the persons privacy (realising that to do so would be hypocritical of him) and also not being particularly interested in the belongings of this random faceless Gryffindor, he looked for any item which would quickly identify this person.

Apparently he was in no such luck.

So he looked through the top layer of clothes, looking for a Quidditch jersey with a name on it perhaps or any other recognisable item of clothing.

Again, no luck there.

Then he saw a pretty silver hair clamp, decorated in a flowering pattern and scattered with small white jewels. It was beautifully ornate, and he knew exactly who owned it.

Hermione Granger.

He remembered her always pulling her sleeves up in their Potions lessons together and then twisting her hair up and clamping it with this hair clip, indicating she meant business. He had stared at it a lot last term before moving his attention to the ringlets which fell loosely outside of her hair-do and the way her nose wrinkled as she read her copy of 'Advanced Potion Making'.

This person was no longer faceless. This person was the one thing that confused Malfoy most, so curiosity got the better of him and he began to unpack the case slowly, making sure not to mess anything up while searching for evidence of her abnormality and of her unnaturalness. The results of his search were inconclusive: he found a weird plastic cuboid with numbered buttons and a screen (definitely abnormal muggle stuff) but nothing else.

He did accidentally brush his hand over her underwear without intending to and jumped back as though stung, finally becoming fully aware of the extreme invasion of privacy that he was committing. As well as this he was startled by the fact the underwear was all black and red… and lacy. He didn't take Granger for a lacy knickers kind of girl and the thought appealed to him. Draco began to repack the top layer of Hermione's belongings hastily, jumping away from this thought as though suddenly realising the implications of knowing such intimate details about Granger.

The moment he slammed the lid shut on the trunk, Crabbe and Goyle walked into the dorms and collapsed on their beds. The party was clearly over then if even Crabbe and Goyle had stopped getting drunk.

"What's that?" Goyle asked.

"It's a Gryffindor's trunk." Draco answered apathetically.

"Why's it here?"

"It wasn't delivered to the right dormitories by the House elves probably"

"Where's your trunk then?" questioned Goyle again.

"Take a wild guess Goyle" muttered an exasperated Draco.

"They've swapped them" sneered Crabbe, tilting his chin upwards, proud for having come to the conclusion faster than Goyle.

"Well done boys" Draco sighed, "now I have to go and get mine back."

Telling Crabbe and Goyle that he wasn't going to put up with the inefficiency of Slughorn and instead would be going straight to the crux of the problem seemed to satisfy their questions about why he would even want to go near the Gryffindor Common Room. It seemed like a reasonable excuse.

So he lounged around with them waiting for Slughorn to leave the party and descend to his living quarters. When he heard the last few stragglers leave the party, he reminded Crabbe and Goyle that he would be back late, not to wait up for him and to say he had gone to the infirmary if anyone asked as he was going to be out after curfew.

With strict instructions even they could not go wrong…

He had levitated the trunk, grabbed a large bottle of Superior Red wine and headed off. Taking swigs from the flagon, he moved through the secret passageways of the school, choosing to stick to the darker areas of the castle in the hopes that Mrs Norris would not catch him and then alert Filch.

He finally found the Gryffindor portrait hole and took the last sip of his beverage, discarding the bottle nonchalantly over his shoulder and hearing the smash of the glass on the floor further down the corridor.

How had he finished a whole bottle to himself? "I suppose everything being fucked up can do that to a guy" he thought angrily.

_Merlin, this trip to Gryffindor was not a good idea when not sober._ Draco abruptly turned back down the corridor levitating the trunk with him, away from the Common Room entrance.

What was he doing? He set down the case and paused.

He had come all this way just to get his stuff and that's what he was going to do.

Forgetting Hermione's trunk halfway back down the corridor he walked up to the portrait with renewed furiousness and began to beat his fists against the portrait.

"Intruder! Intruder!" the Fat Lady began screaming, but he soon calmed her down when he explained that he was actually trying to get someone to answer, and he wasn't interested in entering the Common Room.

Like a bird who had had her feathers ruffled, she settled herself down and retorted "Don't hit my canvas or you will be reported for being out of bed after lights out."

Draco must have looked more disappointed than he realised as the woman in the portrait sighed and whispered, "Don't tell anyone I let you do this, or they'll all be wanting to hit and slam the door… But go on then, hit the frame if you must"

Draco gave her a gallant smile which he had found got him quite far with women over the years, apologised for earlier and then continued to whack the frame of the portrait to wake someone up.

And that's when the portrait swung open violently to reveal a furious, raging, wild-eyed Hermione.

And that's when he lost all control.

* * *

><p>Hermione was looking at him from the portrait, and he then realised she was waiting for an answer.<p>

What was he here for again?

Her. He was here for her. Wasn't that obvious?

He had known the whole journey here that he was coming to see her.

Normally he would have been fine to have waited for Slughorn to sort out his switched case. He wouldn't have gone out of his way to run an errand. He was used to being served, so it's not as though he had wanted to save anyone any trouble.

It had been for her.

He had just pulled her into an embrace and nuzzled comfortably into her.

He had wanted to get a glimpse of her when her bag was swapped with his.

He didn't expect her to be the last one left in the Common Room. He really should have expected it though, after she was the last one left at the Yule Ball. She had decided to make a habit of it apparently.

She repeated, more harshly this time, "What are you doing here?"

"I have a trunk which I need to swap for mine" demanded Draco.

Hermione's eyes widened as she saw him levitate the case which he had left out of her view further down the corridor. There was a brief moment when it seemed to dawn on her that he hadn't come for just her, he had come for his trunk. She had read into the situation too much and had completely humiliated herself by allowing him to get close to her.

Feeling the prick of oncoming tears in her eyes, she swallowed and nodded. If she had spoken her voice may have cracked so she quickly turned to fetch the trunk from her room, swiftly moving across the Common Room while trying to keep her composure.

"No invitation to come inside? How very unfriendly of you…" Draco pressed.

He stepped through the portrait hole without that invitation, and slunk over to sit back on a nearby couch. She continued up to the stairs to her dormitory afterhalting at the sound of his voice.

Draco again interrupted her attempt at escaping him again; "How about you take your case up with you, it'll save you a lot of time".

The patronising advice and the way he was so nonchalant about what had just happened was really testing Hermione's patience. She turned back to see that self-satisfied look on his face and wanted to scream.

With a deft flick of her wand, she lifted her case to move with her.

She strode up the stairs, missing every other step in order to reach the sanctuary that was her room faster. Rushing in, she flew full speed towards her bed and spent the next few minutes breathing raggedly and trying to slow the beating of her heart. Curled into the foetal position, she felt so nauseous and was sure that she wouldn't be able to look him in the eye again.

He had just wanted to swap his trunk with hers.

She was so stupid.

_Wait a second…_

_How had he known the trunk was hers? _

_That's what he had said right? _

She had put a locking charm on it but she didn't doubt about Draco's ability to unlock such a simple charm. Nonetheless, nothing in her trunk really identified her. She had half a trunk of books which could distinguish Hermione due to her studiousness, but it could just as easily have been her fellow roommates.

_He knew it was her case…how had he worked that out?_

And then it hit her.

After having realised that the case was hers, he could have just gone to Slughorn like how she had been going to McGonagall but instead he had chosen to come directly to her.

A smug grin found itself on her face as she had an epiphany.

_Malfoy wanted to see her as much as she wanted to see him_.

She walked the door and stood and the top of the stairs looking down at Malfoy who was leaning against the wall of the staircase. Confident and cocky about the fact she had seemed so disorientated and meek previously, his expression changed as she stayed at the top of the stairs and levitated his trunk down.

He had sensed the shift in power that had occurred during the few minutes she had been thinking in her room, and looking at her smirk from the bottom step, he felt as though he was left out of some sort of private joke or realisation.

He didn't like it.

He had just tried to trick her into thinking she was going after him and that her feelings were unreciprocated, but she knew… and now she was willing to play his little game because ultimately she knew she would win.

Triumphantly she murmured, "You can show yourself out. Have a good night, _Draco_".

She then sauntered back into her room, closing the door softly behind her and leaving a speechless, spellbound boy at the foot of her stairs. 

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><p><strong>Thank you for taking the time to read this! I realise this chapter was a lot of waffle but I'm just laying the foundations for what is to come.<strong>

**FUN FACTS:**

**1) 'Recludaliquid' is a counter-curse for a locking spell. I came up with the word using the Latin words for 'unlock' and 'anything' and merging them together.**

**2) The appearance of Draco's faithful Slytherin's, Crabbe and Goyle, is quite important to me. I know they had some horrible prejudices but it is important to remember they were just children who followed what they were taught by their parents. That's what is so tragic about the war, it's that the teens are all involved and most of the Slytherin's are just fighting their parent's battles.**

**3) The idea that Narcissa Malfoy told Draco stories about ugly mudblood's stems back to something I learnt ages ago about the Nazi's publishing anti-semetic childrens stories which portrayed Jewish people as ugly, thieving etc. Prejudice is prejudice, and the discrimination and persecution of mudblood's occuring in Harry Potter alludes to the Nazi's frequently, so I wanted to make that link in this fic. **

**4) The "methodical" way Hermione fixes her hair and clothes after Draco messed them up and rejected her was difficult to describe and I think it came off quite clunky. However I included this as I wanted to refer to Hermione's ruthlessness (this time we see her discard her feelings quite ruthlessly and replace it with a stony face) because it is her biggest character flaw and needed to be included in my depiction of her.**

**Again thanks! You're all my favourite pudding cups, and if you wanted to read more of this fic, don't worry another chapter will be on it's way within the next week!**


	3. Muggle Studies

**Author's Notes: Had a lot of fun writing this, and I love a good love-hate relationship. So don't expect this to get fluffy anytime soon. **

**Fun facts will be at the bottom again and please review to let me know if you're liking this?**

**Disclaimer: If I was JKR I would be in the Bahamas right now, not writing fanfic.**

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><p>"Two weeks into term and you're already picking on me! Is this really fair Peeves!" Hermione shrieked as she ran along the corridor, holding her books above her head as a torrent of chalk pieces rained down on her. With her textbooks raised as a protective shield, she sprinted towards her classroom door into the classroom trying to get away. Spinning herself inside the door she took a deep breath as she had escaped Peeves but now realised she would have to apologise for being late, thanks to that bloody poltergeist.<p>

This morning Hermione's roommates had left without her. They offered to wait but she had wanted to walk down to breakfast a little later, because that was when he usually came down to breakfast. It didn't fit in with her usual schedule at all but she found she had enjoyed sleeping in more and more recently.

Clearly she had been enjoying it a little too much as she had overslept, and came down to breakfast to find there were only a few Slytherin's left in the Great Hall. There was only 10 minutes left of breakfast and then classes would start. The emptiness of the hall wouldn't be anything unusual, yet there were no teachers supervising at the staff table and there were so few students that she began wondering whether her watch was wrong and she really was extremely late.

Confused, she glanced over at the group of Slytherins gathered at their table and saw that Malfoy had also come down very late and was sitting by himself, not wanting to associate with any of his younger housemates. They didn't seem too keen to interact with him either as he gave off a very hostile aura, which put most people off trying to befriend him immediately. Hermione smiled knowingly. It was all for show, to maintain whatever reputation he had to uphold for his family.

She caught his eye and there was a second where he looked into hers, and responded; almost broke into a smirk at catching her looking. Then his eyes darted back down, realising he couldn't be cocky, or even act flattered and confident about her attention, because his only reaction to her should be to hate her, to despise her and to sneer at her. It had been two weeks now and Malfoy had still failed to acknowledge her.

But times like these when she saw his glances reassured her that she wasn't imagining things; just when she was doubtful there was anything between Draco and her at all, she caught him looking. It was a small gesture, but they both knew what sharing a glance meant: _I'm still interested_.

That's how she knew she was winning.

She was now stumbling into her Muggle Studies classroom and shouting a curse at Peeves turned to give an apology for her tardiness. Then she realised that the classroom was empty. Apparently everyone was late, including her teacher. Or maybe she had been panicking in the hall and didn't actually need to run?

Everyone had probably finished their breakfast and then gone and collected their books from their Common Room's rather than carrying them down to breakfast like Hermione had done knowing she wouldn't have time to collect them later. She stalked over to her seat, thumping her textbooks down, and waited.

_Bloody brilliant_. She was already having a bad morning and her (ridiculously boring) Muggle Studies teacher hadn't even entered the class room yet. She could only see today getting worse as Gryffindor had these lessons with Slytherin and tensions were running high between the two houses, with Gryffindor being made up of muggle-borns and muggle-born sympathisers, and the Slytherin's siding with the Death Eaters and Voldemort.

Most Slytherins didn't bother showing up to Muggle Studies. But those who did made sure that Gryffindor's who showed a special interest or appreciation for the subject would experience a nasty curse which would often leave those hexed in a catatonic state. Even Madame Pomfrey had struggled to cure some students.

Apparently she was early, so she began unpacking her satchel and preparing herself for this long lesson, which she really didn't need to attend but loved all the same. It was like experiencing home. Professor Burbage however had asked her to be a teacher's assistant in her lessons, helping to explain to those from Wizarding families how the muggle world worked. She got extra credit, so she had elected to take the class.

Swinging the door open in a regal manner, Draco sauntered in, obviously not even considering apologising for his lateness as Hermione had been going to. Looking around the room, he was unaffected by the fact the rest of the class wasn't there, probably assuming he was on time.

Looking around the room, his eyes narrowed as he saw that Hermione was the only other student in the room. She saw his shoulders stiffen…but then he moved to his desk on the other side of the classroom and sat down a couple of rows behind her, carrying himself with confidence. She hated how he had made it look so easy for him to just ignore her.

Aiming to follow his example she turned her eyes to the front of the classroom, concentrating on anything but him.

_Eyes to the front, don't you dare give him the satisfaction of looking at him. _

She couldn't help it though, it was like the boy was magnetic. She glanced back over her shoulder and he caught the movement, and looked up with a smirk. So he would acknowledge her when it was just the two of them?

Typical, what a git… and by looking back at Malfoy she realised she had given him a small victory over her. Shooting him a scathing glare, she turned to the front and sat rigidly waiting for her classmates.

She couldn't feel his eyes on the back of her head, he was obviously refusing to look at her, being the "filthy Mudblood" that she was.

She wasn't turning back again.

He had well and truly cocked up with her if she took him smiling at her the wrong way. Typical Granger though, she was incredibly rational but allergic to the full spectrum of human emotion. Then again Malfoy couldn't really talk… but at least he read the signs right. He admitted to himself he liked her and he thought she liked him.

His problem was that he had to ignore his feelings. Granger on the other hand was still having difficulties coming to terms with hers. So much for the bravery of Gryffindors; Hermione could hardly face her emotions here privately let alone publically.

That was another thing he was thankful for. Just like him, he was pretty sure she wasn't keen to let anyone know about this secret association they had, whatever it was. Everyone would think he had slipped her some Amortentia and she wasn't willing to be scrutinised by her friends. He wasn't worth that to her.

Neither of them were looking at each other, fixing their eyes on anything they could find around the classroom. They were each taunting the other by not giving in to the pull they both felt to look to each other.

They had reached a stalemate.

Hermione checked her watch regularly, every minute she glanced down and still after 10 minutes no one had shown up. Where were her other classmates? More importantly, where was her teacher? It was so unlike Professor Burbage to be late. She would wait another few minutes and then leave.

As it was, she was relishing the tension saturating the air between her and Draco.

This was a dangerous game they were playing.

They both knew it, but stayed seated and waited for the other to break.

Draco broke first. Although he would never call it 'breaking'. He simply wanted to diffuse the tension and get a rise out of her. Making her angry would make it easier to stay away from her as then she would definitely hex him if he went near her. The threat of a hex by Hermione would definitely be a deterrent.

He broke first: "Clearly the study of your muggles has bored the rest of the class as much as me, and in the case of your fellow Gryffindors we can only hope it bored them to death"

"Then why are you here if you are so uninterested?" Hermione retorted. She didn't know whether she was asking about the class or herself? Neither did he, but he suspected she was asking him why that night outside the Common Room happened if he was so "bored".

Draco blatantly ignored any deeper meaning to the question and responded saying "Muggle Studies are compulsory for all Purebloods and just like you Granger, I like to keep my grades high. Besides, someone had to come and take notes for the other Slytherins and I got stuck with the short straw."

That was the closest thing to a compliment she had ever received from Malfoy. Complimenting her brains always appeased her, and so she softened slightly.

Resigning herself, she muttered, "Doesn't seem like you'd ever get 'stuck with the short straw' if you didn't want to be. You _are_ a Malfoy."

So she'd recognised that his cronies all worshipped him, and he got the sense she knew it wasn't real friendship like she had with Weasel and Scarhead. Now Draco must seem like a right twat. He deserves it though, after all, he encouraged the adoration he received for his family name during their earlier years at Hogwarts.

They sat there in silence; Draco wondering where said cronies actually were (because he hadn't actually realised they were bunking class until now) and Hermione still in shock at the fact he had given her a compliment.

Seeing the look of shock registered on her face, and being worried she would think that this interaction was tolerable for him, he said in a low tone, "Don't look so surprised. I still wouldn't go anywhere near you so don't try anything like the other night again."

"You tripped into me, remember?" she retorted quickly. With that small taunt she had subtly reminded him of the fact that he had sought her out to swap their trunks.

He stayed silent, having no response.

He couldn't deny that…so he decided to change the subject to one he was more comfortable with.

"Where the fuck is Burbage" he scowled.

Draco was right, everyone was ridiculously late. Plus, if he wasn't coming for class surely he should have owled cover work?

"Not like I wanted to learn about your inferior race anyway" he pushed, trying to nudge her temper.

"I guess you didn't" she said, not rising to it.

"This class really it a waste of time, just like you muggle-borns" he taunted, clearly trying to reassert his ideas about blood purity more than actually wanting to offend her.

"Mhmmm…" she gritted her teeth.

Still no response from her, even though he could see her silently fuming.

Malfoy continued, "I mean really they shouldn't be teaching this-"

"You know what Malfoy, drop the bloody act!" Hermione interrupted him, a film of red covering her vision as she felt hot, sweltering rage course through her.

Malfoy stared at her. Her darkened eyes and deep breathing making her look like a lioness, with a mane of hair crowning her head. For the first time in ages he didn't want to respond, he wanted to just watch her in all her ferocious beauty.

"I don't know what you're talking about" Malfoy responded coolly.

With another burst of ferocity she snarled, "You bloody well do! For Godric's sake you don't need to do this around me! I already know that I have to work five times as hard as everyone else just to get simple spells correct and I already know it's going to be ten times as hard for me to get employed in the Wizarding world with your family corrupting half of the frigging government. So if you think for just one second I need to put up with your pureblood shit, which by the way, even you don't believe in anymore, then you are _wrong_."

She was now standing, relentlessly continuing her tirade; "And because I know you don't believe a word of it anymore, I don't want to have to hear you try and reassure yourself of it every minute."

She prowled across the room, as if cornering her prey.

"You are bloody well privileged and I'm sick of hearing you struggling with accepting the reality of the fact that blood supremacy does not exist, when I'm struggling living in a world where the prejudice is a reality for me."

She was standing face to face with him. Her eyes blazed darkly and her chin was raised proudly.

"I am a Mudblood, as you so eloquently put it, I am royally screwed in the Wizarding world and…" she punctuated each word with a sharp prod to his chest: "I-just-don't-need-your-shit."

Feeling a weight had lifted off her chest she walked back over to her desk and began packing away her things.

"Apparently class was cancelled and our great mates decided not to tell us." Hermione said over her shoulder, trying to diffuse the tension from her rant about his family and blood status.

Draco had moved silently over to her desk and she felt him standing behind her. As she went to take her quill from her desk to pack in her bag, but he grabbed her wrist and spun her round to face him.

He looked straight into her eyes and growled "Don't associate me with my family."

Draco was never a man of many words, meaning that when he did speak he said a lot with as few words as possible. This small comment spoke millions to Hermione who knew this was an apology on behalf of his family and confirmation that he didn't think she was inferior, not even close.

She knew to read between the lines and Draco was thankful that she wouldn't make him say it explicitly. She wanted to thank him, and a simple "thank you" did not seem suitable for the huge admission he had just trusted her with.

But how do you thank a guy who has everything?

That's when she grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him.

Draco hesitated then caught her mouth and respond to the kiss, closing the space between them with a forceful determination. Without breaking the kiss he backed her up against her desk and leaned his face down closer to hers, placing his hands firmly on hers hips.

Tightening his grip he powerfully hoisted her up to sit on the classroom desk. He liked the control he had over the naive Hermione Granger.

Or at least he thought he was the one in control, until she wound her legs round his hips and pulled him closer to her. The collision of their hips caused him to make a growling sound from the back of his throat. There was something instinctual and animalistic about Hermione and him. It seemed natural. But he also knew it was ruled by volatile and passionate emotions. Anger, lust, pride… they felt it all in extremes when they were together.

Her tongue seemed to wrestle with his, his hard jawline pushing against hers but her warm lips moving against his and fighting him for control.

She draped her arms around his neck and got lost in their kiss, toying with the hair on the back of his head and twirling the short locks around her fingers. He almost lost himself too, hearing her raspy breathing as he bit and sucked at the bottom of her neck near her collar. He would leave her a mark to tell her she was his. It would bruise a reddish-purple hue, and he knew he was trusting her with this as evidence of their relationship. He was trusting her to have it and hide it, just below her collar as their little secret.

He saw her chest heaving and sensing the reason for his distraction, she pushed herself up against his chest, tempting him to just rip open her shirt right there. But luckily Draco had retained some self-control and instead distracted his hands by tightening their grip around her hips and tugging her closer to kiss her again. She was acutely aware of the minimal layers of clothing between them, but instead of making her wary it just made her feel randy.

He tore his lips away from hers, and she looked up at him puzzled at why he would stop. He got his breath back and leaned his forehead against hers, looking into her dark lusty eyes. She stared back up at his powerful grey gaze wanting very badly to pull him back down to her. But she knew he had to come back in his own time.

They both closed their eyes and breathed the same air, their lips brushing against each other but neither daring to rush this moment. Draco then moved in purposefully and their lips locked when-

There was a loud thump on the class room door and it swung open a few seconds later.

Draco and Hermione swore simultaneously;

"Shit!"

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><p><strong>Again thank you so much for sticking with this fic so far! If you have any spare time then fave or review because I love feedback (even negative feedback is helpful)<strong>

**FUN FACTS:**

**1) I was re-reading the Order of the Phoenix and realised how much I adored Peeves as a character. He wasn't in the original draft for this chapter but I think I squeezed him in quite well.**

**2) The absence of the staff at breakfast is relevant. I try not to include random waffle where I can avoid it so things usually have a purpose if I write them in, just keep that in mind when reading future chapters.**

**3) The line where Draco describes Hermione as "allergic to the full spectrum of human emotion" is actually from one of my favourite films, but is so true in Hermione's case I had to include it. In the trio, she is the brains and Ron is the heart. She often thinks rationally and disregards emotions when trying to problem solve, a characteristic I identify with and absolutely needed to include.**

**4) I know in the books Hogwarts never allowed student's to be teacher's assistants but why else would a muggle-born witch like Hermione be taking Muggle Studies? I fully believe that it would be probable that Hogwarts could introduce a teacher's assistant/ work experience kind of scheme to try to improve the employability of their graduates.**

**5) I may have gone a bit over board on Hermione's rant, but I felt like I was ranting about my problems in the real world through Hermione in this chapter. That's the brilliance of Harry Potter, its morals about blood prejudice relate so brilliantly to the struggles of racism, homophobia, etc. Hermione's rant was suppose to be cathartic for her, and it was for me as well. And notice how as the privileged one, Draco, does not say "Well I have it hard too" (just saying...he's learning.)**

**6) The competition aspect of their relationship is important to me. They always talk bout breaking the other person or winning. They were intellectual equals, always sparring with each other in their earlier years and I think it would be difficult for them to remove this from their relationship.**

**Sorry about the cliff hanger, the next chapter will (hopefully) make up for it. Review and fave if you enjoyed it! Pretty please and thank you!**


	4. The First Floor Girls' Lavatory

**Author's Note: Sorry this chapters late but I've been at interviews for universities all week so I hope you can forgive me!**

**Thanks for those who have favourited, reviewed and followed! Let me know your opinions on this if you have time to, it really helps and I really appreciate it!**

**Disclaimer: Sadly JKR didn't make Dramione canon, so that's evidence enough that I'm not her and therefore I don't own anything to do with HP. **

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><p>There was a loud thump on the class room door and it swung open a few seconds later, giving Hermione and Draco just enough time to jump apart and straighten themselves up.<p>

Harry and Ron then strolled in with Harry mumbling to Ron that he needn't have a temper with the door, the handle was just a bit stiff. However peeved Harry was at Ron's impatience, Hermione was secretly rejoicing at Ron's irritated thump which had given her and Draco a warning and just enough time to move apart.

"We thought we'd find you here, only just realised we forgot to tell you class was cancelled. Rumours say that the staff are dealing with a threat to the school but I'll bet they're all just taking a day off." Ron offered this up as a severely deficient apology.

Harry added "Once we found out, we skipped breakfast to train for Quidditch. Wanted to get onto the pitch early seeing as there were no classes."

At this moment she hated them fiercely for their interruption, and loved them equally fiercely for interrupting as she didn't know what she wanted from Draco yet. As well as that he had a reputation with the female population of Hogwarts, and she was not interested in _that_ kind of relationship just yet. She had her studies to focus on. Then again she was pretty sure he was on the same page, in not wanting any sort of relationship at all, which suited her just fine.

The dark lusty look in her eyes, stimulated by her and Draco's kiss was misinterpreted by Harry for anger.

"Aw 'Mione please don't be mad" Harry begged glancing over at Malfoy, who had moved back to the Slytherin's side of the classroom, fixing a look of contempt on his face. "Look we're really sorry you had to put up with Malfoy"

She looked down at the floor. Hermione was chewing her lip and debating whether to say something in Malfoy's defence like "he's not that bad" or "he hasn't been a bother", but she then realised how suspicious that would look.

Draco must have noticed her hesitation, and interrupted- "More like I had to put up with her- she's awful company."

Oh for Godric's sake. So that's how he was going to play it? Fantastic.

Harry and Ron were looking at him venomously, and had both opened their mouths, no doubt to spit an insulting remark at Malfoy but then she bit back at Draco herself.

"It's alright guys… he's _not worth it_" she said, hooking her back over her shoulder and turning to face her friends.

She hope she hadn't been too cryptic. She thought he might have just assumed it was just another insult, typical of their usual spats, but then she turned to him and saw a flash of anger in his eyes. She'd insulted their kiss just then and so cowered away from him slightly, knowing he could be far nastier than her.

But the biting response never came from him.

Draco could easily have had the last word. He always did. They all knew it, especially the two other Gryffindor boys who were looking suspiciously at him over their shoulders, confused about his silence and expecting a hex to be sent their way. Malfoy watched her walk away with her friends, seemingly unaware that she had hit a nerve with him.

He muttered dejectedly to the empty classroom, "Well I was asking for that."

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><p>Over the next few months Hermione hid herself in the library. She had always tried avoiding being in the public eye, even though she knew it was difficult when she was the best friend of the 'Chosen One'. Ever since she had argued with Malfoy she had been trying to distract herself from the war which raged outside the walls. Arguments surrounding blood status could be heard throughout the echoing corridors of Hogwarts castle and were fuelled by the hostilities, making it harder and harder for her to ignore.<p>

The whispered "Mudblood" comments were becoming less furtive, said louder and with a sense of righteousness. But Hermione tried not to blame them.

After all they were all taught from a young age that she was inferior, and once taught something by the individuals who you admire and who raised you, it is difficult to contradict these beliefs. Who would question the authority of a parental figure, especially when brought up in such a strict and regimented environment as a Pureblood household?

So she really couldn't blame them.

They were all victims here.

Unfortunately for Malfoy, she seemed to believe that she really could blame him.

Her withdrawal from her social life at school was clearly due to him. At first Draco checked his arrogance for believing he was the sole reason she studied more, it was Granger after all. She was probably just being her usual nerdy self.

But, he had noticed she didn't make the effort to come to breakfast at the same time as him anymore and she didn't catch his eye. She seemed to have just lost interest.

But there were moments when he walked into the library, and saw her eyes flit down as his went to meet hers. She had been looking at him entering the room, the blush on her freckled cheeks and the way she shyly tucked her hair behind her ear revealing that he hadn't just imagined it.

Not so comforting was the fact that she always looked away.

Always.

He hadn't been able to get her to look him in the eye for ages now and they were almost halfway through the winter term. He always managed to screw up with girls; he hadn't the patience or the commitment to deal with them. He found himself thinking of the Gryffindor princess who he had screwed up with so monumentally that this time that he wasn't sure if she would give in to him again.

The library in the evening was quiet and he watched as the dust particles shimmered in the air where the light streaming through the tall windows hit them, making the air seem thick. Yet, he still felt his breath hitch in his throat when he looked over at the girl and saw her straighten her legs and stretch, arching her back and releasing a yawn which caused her nose to wrinkle. She then stood up, clearly realising as Draco had half an hour ago, she had been so absorbed in her book that everyone else in the library had left for dinner.

Except for him.

He then realised how difficult it would be when she notices they are the only two people left here.

_Well this is going just great_, Draco thought sarcastically.

Gathering up his books hastily and shoving them in his bag as he stood up and half-ran to the exit, hoping she would think he was just catching up on some work. Actually that's what he had aimed to do, he just got a bit distracted mid-essay is all…

Hermione and Draco, both running away from the potentially awkward situation hurtled towards the library door, each aiming to get out before the other. But they were both speeding towards the doors at an equal speed.

_He'll slow down surely_, Hermione thought.

_Why is she walking so fast, if she's not careful we'll both end up-_

Draco didn't get to finish his train of thought as they both stopped abruptly in front of each other so they didn't collide.

In front of them there was only room for one of them to go through the door at a time without touching shoulders. Both of them wanted to keep a significant distance between themselves and the other so they both stood there in front of the door, trying and failing to nod the other one through.

Hermione bobbed her head to the side, indicating that Malfoy could go first but feeling awkward as it is Malfoy tried gesturing for Hermione to go first.

Stubborn as she was Hermione shook her head and said "It's alright".

"No really I insist, ladies first" Malfoy said smoothly as he pulled the large wooden door towards him. He said it so sincerely, his aristocratic roots becoming apparent through his show of good manners. _He usually does such a fantastic job of hiding them_, Hermione thought to herself wryly.

But it was times like these when she got a glimpse of the real Draco Malfoy. Malfoy was a gentleman. She hated that he had redeeming qualities because she really would prefer to just write him off as another pretentious Pureblood, but Hermione was far cleverer than that. She knew…

Smiling at him shyly she walked through the open door, swaying her hips as she moved silently down the corridor. Tucking the larger books she had loaned from the library into her arms and hugging them closer to her chest, she wandered slowly down the corridor, half hoping he would catch up with her and half hoping she would get away from him without interference. She turned her head back over her shoulder to see if he was coming and immediately regretted it.

She saw his grey eyes fix to hers and she couldn't move. They were piercing and unblinking, with a look of steely determination which she had always admired.

She paused.

He then looked down at the stone floor of the castle and turned onto different corridor. He didn't want to compete for her because he couldn't be with her publically, which was unfair on both of them. However, he also didn't want to compete with her either in this game they were playing; trying to win each other's attention while cautiously shielding their real thoughts. He knew he would lose.

Granger never lost…

They had come to a truce.

She had acknowledged him and he had acknowledged her. They were civil, but his leaving her alone indicated he didn't want anything more between them… so she didn't want anything more from him. With a dip of her head, she continued down one of the more deserted corridors in order to take a shortcut back to the Gryffindor common rooms.

She had lost. She really hated losing.

And then, as the tears began to flood down her cheeks she broke into a run, her robes billowing at her ankles and the sound of her footsteps echoing off the cold walls.

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><p>Running from the third floor, down the sweeping staircases to the first floor girls' lavatory she continued her crying, the whole time wondering what exactly she was crying over.<p>

On her mad sprint to the privacy of the lavatories, she tried to be honest with herself. She thought about the many potential reasons for her crying. She loved Malfoy? _Definitely not, she had only just admitted she was attracted to him. I mean really, she wasn't the type to just fall straight in._

She tripped slightly over a step thinking too hard about the multitude of other reasons.

She had been lonely? _I wish loneliness was the problem here but I'm pretty sure that's not it._

Maybe it was the rejection? _No, Hermione had dealt with her fair share of rejections when she was younger and in her ugly duckling phase. Heck even her two best friends had rejected her as a nerdy "nutcase" when they first met her. _

She just couldn't put her finger on it.

She wasn't especially sad. She was just crying.

She knew there must be a reason… she just couldn't pin point why.

As she burst loudly through the doors leading to the lavatory she felt a sense of relief realising she had managed to avoid anyone seeing her like this.

The hysteria had mellowed and she now found herself walking over to the sink, taking deep breaths and trying to stop her sobs. Clasping her hands round the edge of one of the sinks she stared up at her reflection.

Her puffy eyes and red cheeks could be fixed with a quick spell, and she didn't care too much about her appearance anyways. It was the cold look of distress in her eyes which made her recognise what it was that made her cry.

She hadn't realised it at first but when she realised his attitudes to Muggleborns were changing she had hoped she was the catalyst. She had hoped she could change his views, make him accept her. Somehow she had believed if she had been able to make him like her, it would solve the issues caused by blood supremacy.

Rationally she knew it wouldn't solve the wizarding world's problems but it was a start. Besides, it would have been an important personal victory.

With this rejection she felt like he had given up on her.

She had been dismissed.

She began sniffling again, the ragged breaths indicating another onslaught of violent sobbing. She scurried into a toilet cubicle and grabbed some tissues wiping the tears as soon as they appeared on her face.

Maybe if they never ran down her cheeks they wouldn't count as tears? _What a stupid thought_, Hermione groaned, _of course they were real tears._

To makes things better, just when Hermione was at her lowest point, Moaning Myrtle rose from the toilet, no doubt sensing Hermione's distress and like a ship to a beacon, arriving to tease her.

"Oh deary me, crying are we?" Myrtle tutted, her translucent white form floating upwards and her crossed arms indicating Hermione would be receiving very little kindness from the ghost.

"Oh spare me Myrtle" Hermione said cuttingly, through gritted teeth.

Sounding incredibly miffed Myrtle wailed, "You're in my cubicle you know!"

Hermione was not prepared for a childish bickering session with Myrtle but she also didn't want to return to the Gryffindor Common Room just yet. She could still feel the tears brimming in her eyes and she knew that her two best friends, even if they each have the emotional range of a teaspoon, would be able to recognise that she was upset.

Even Ron would pick up on something.

So she just leant back against the side of the cubicle, trying to steady her breathing and trying to ignore Myrtles comments. But it was difficult when every minute the ghoul would nag her: "They used to tell me only wimps cry, are you a wimp Hermione?", "Did someone tell you how frizzy your hair is?" and "Did the boys tell you they don't really like you?" were just a few of the charming comments she heard from Myrtle.

Hermione supposed that this must be karma, coming back to bite her in the arse because of how horrid she had been to Myrtle in second year. She knew Myrtle wanted to get revenge on her, so she allowed the ghost to tease her, continuing to cry and letting out a huge sob with every nasty insult Myrtle added.

It worked to weigh her down and she sunk to the floor, leaning her back against the cubicle.

Perhaps realising what she had done was similar to the actions of her tormentor, Olive Hornby, Myrtle softened. She floated down and sat opposite to Hermione.

"Is it Ron?" Myrtle asked in her irritatingly high pitch. Hermione shook her head.

"Is it a boy?" Myrtle continued nagging, less persistently though.

Hermione paused, debating whether she should tell Myrtle and risk it being spread around the whole school by the ghosts. But her pause had indicated enough to Myrtle who, although way past 60 years old, was still a teenage girl at heart and still understood the chaos of a teenage girl's love life.

"So it is a boy!" Myrtle said triumphantly, her eyes sparkling.

The new information gave her the opportunity to ruin Hermione Granger, but when looking into the bushy haired girls eyes, Myrtle felt a sympathy for her which Granger had not previously inspired.

Myrtle realised that Granger was a lot like her; clever (Myrtle was a Ravenclaw after all), she hadn't been pretty and had been bullied by students and teachers alike for her large front teeth and birds nest hair and most of all, Hermione found it difficult to form friendships. Or any type of relationships for that matter.

They really were quite similar and in that moment Myrtle felt a pang in her heart as she watched the girl cry…and then she remembered she didn't have a heart and began to wail.

"Oh what _is_ it Myrtle?" Hermione hissed, with both concern and exasperation.

"I just forgot I was dead that's all," Myrtle whispered, "Who's the boy?"

"He's a Slytherin"

"Oh no, you know I was killed by a Slytherin."

"Yes Myrtle," Hermione sighed, "but I just thought…he was… I don't know"

"You just thought…" Myrtle repeated, "I just thought… the boy was here to tease me, but then he killed me…". Hermione could see the ghost reliving the final day of her life in her head and the spirit then suddenly began to cry hysterically again.

Spending about 20 minutes consoling Myrtle after that was difficult and really tried Hermione's patience. But she still sat there with the ghost, understanding the horror Myrtle experienced when she was killed by those yellow eyes. Hermione was haunted by them to this day, and she had only been petrified. Hermione never realised it in her early school years but Myrtle was bitter and resentful for a reason, that reason being she had been murdered at the age of 14 solely for being born from muggle parents.

It wasn't fair.

Later, having had enough of her pity party with Myrtle, Hermione sorted out her tear-stained face with a few glamour spells, brushed off her robes and walked out of the bathroom, waving to a slightly less miserable Myrtle and promising herself that would be the last time Draco Malfoy ever made her cry.

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><p><strong>I hate to nag (sorry, not sorry) but please review fave if you're reading and I will love you for ever and ever!**

**FUN FACTS:**

**1) I know in the books Myrtle and Hermione had a strenuous relationship at best but I feel that as they matured they would reconcile. They were so similar; bullied, muggleborn, clever etc. and Hermione would have ended up like Myrtle (remember she cried in the toilets on Halloween of first year) had she not befriended Harry and Ron. There is a level of empathy there and that interaction will be relevant in future chapters.**

**2) I was going to have someone catch them kissing in the classroom, but then that would take the fun out of their relationship. Having secrets between two people always makes a story more entertaining.**

**3) I feel like it's completely forgotten in the books that being petrified by the Basilisk must have been a traumatic experience for all of those who were attacked. This chapter was just a little reminder of how much of a shit Salazar Slytherin was by making a monster attack the unskilled and innocent students of Hogwarts. **

**Sorry for the kind of sad chapter, but we all need a little bit of angst now and then. And there's no kind of angst quite like Dramione angst. Next chapter will be up in a week or two, until then thanks for reading!**


	5. Veritaserum

**Author's Note: Hey again, sorry it's been a while but I am currently trying to juggle work, school and a social life along with writing this story. Things have kept me very busy as well as having some serious writer's block, so I apologise but I have a long chapter here to make up for it. Also I'm used to writing fluff or smut so this angst is draining me, so I sometimes have to take a break from Dramione. I haven't started writing the next chapter so I don't know when the next one will be up but it should be soon! **

**I, once again, am not happy with this but I thought I would post it anyway. It's not like glaring at my computer screen will improve it so here goes!**

**Fave, follow or review if you like it! Let me know what you think! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. **

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><p>Following her emotional breakdown in the winter term, Hermione decided that she would avoid the First Floor Girl's Lavatories at all cost, unable to fathom why she had allowed herself to be so vulnerable in front of Myrtle. Frankly, it was embarrassing and she wanted to forget all about it.<p>

All the students returned from their Christmas holidays intact, and all of the fifth years felt the panic over revision for O.W.L.s set in. They were tense with the knowledge that they should begin revision now, and allow enough time to remember every detail of their text books. But often students didn't pay attention to what they should begin doing and instead continued with what they wanted to be doing.

All except for Hermione. She dived into revision head first.

The increasing hostility towards her due to her blood status meant that she had a lot of time outside of classes where she wasn't busy and wouldn't really leave the Gryffindor common room. This gave her the perfect opportunity to work and avoid Malfoy, and in no time whatever feelings she had towards him were gone.

She felt that coldness towards him return, and saw the return of hostility in his feelings towards her. Just like that, their peaceful relationship crossed back over the line to a cold and adversarial relationship.

Gryffindor against Slytherin.

Muggleborn against pureblood.

The classes held between the Gryffindor's and Slytherin's were cut back due to antagonism between the houses. This meant the only class the two houses had together was Potions… and this was only because of confusion over a timetabling issue. Hermione often groaned to herself that if Professor Slughorn would only work one extra hour she would not have to endure mixing with the snakes. She had a feeling that he had refused to teach the classes separately, making a vain attempt to bring the enemy houses together during his lessons.

One attempt in late January was so obvious that there was an uproar in the classroom.

"Today I will put you in your pairs for your newest brewing project. I will put you with partners of similar aptitude so that you won't be advantaged or disadvantaged due to your partner. Remember, I grade you on whether I think you reached your full potential and gave it your best efforts so worry about doing your best, not being the top of the class."

This announcement was met with groans, sneers and even a few exclamatory blood slurs.

Draco rolled his eyes. Slughorn always had been such a sap. His attempts to unite the houses would get no one anywhere. I mean bloody hell, in a couple of years when they were all out in the real world they would be battling against each other.

Hermione groaned at Slughorn's announcement. Unfortunately for her he would be expecting extraordinary things from her work. She hated having set the bar so high for herself, because on cold winter mornings like these she could barely summon the energy to get out of bed, let alone perform in class.

To be honest, she wasn't sure if she was going to make it through this lesson.

She looked over her shoulders to Ron and Harry, who were also almost fast asleep and smiled to herself. Harry was giving Ron advice on how let Lavender Brown down easily.

"She left me a trail of rose petals in the common room this morning mate" Ron squeaked worriedly.

"Seriously Ron I have positively no idea when it comes to the female population, completely bloody foreign to me" said Harry, somewhat exasperatedly.

"Please" Ron whimpered.

"Hermione's a girl. Ask her!" Harry whined, trying to deflect Ron's begging and nagging onto Granger.

"Seriously Ron, just grow a pair and tell her!" Hermione snapped. Ron and Harry had assumed that her snappishness was because of her crush on Ron in their earlier school years. Harry had confronted her about it and rather than have to explain everything to him, she let him believe it. Did that make her a bad person? Probably not, but she didn't feel too great about lying either.

It would be a lot easier to have him believe that unrequited love made her miserable, not her brief fling with his enemy Draco Malfoy. Not only would he not believe it but he wouldn't look at her the same… and she needed Harry like a sister needs her brother. _All I can do now is repent… and regret everything._

Sighing when Ron looked a bit taken back with her scolding, she advised him to "Pretend you're interested in someone else, she'll definitely get the hint and probably focus her hatred on the girl." Wise advice. Rational… and decidedly uncaring for whichever unfortunate girl Ron would choose to blame for his lack of interest in Lavender.

"Hermione you're bloody brilliant!" Ron exclaimed.

Hermione rolled her eyes and Harry mumbled something about the other girls in their year needing to sleep with their eyes open and then said, "Good luck to them, Brown is batshit crazy".

Hermione turned back to the front of the classroom hearing her name.

"Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, of course, top of the class" Slughorn called.

She felt her breathing falter for a second and a small pinch in her chest but compartmentalised the pain immediately.

She was fine.

Draco was nothing to her anymore.

She heard him protest at having to work with her but Slughorn dismissed the complaint, reminding Draco that "If anything Mr Malfoy, Hermione here will raise your grade in Potions, not hinder it because of her blood lineage. Be grateful, dear boy."

She heard the growl coming from Draco along with the sneers of his friends and shuddered. Harry and Ron stared at her sympathetically and Ron actually volunteered to swap partners with her. "After all I'm a pureblood even if I am a blood traitor, hopefully he'll give me less of a hard time," said Ron as he nudged Hermione. He didn't say the words pureblood boastfully, he only meant to help Hermione out of a sticky situation. But it just reminded her of the difficulty she faced in the wizarding world.

It just distanced her from him and from Harry, and especially from Draco.

She was quite alone.

Regardless, she couldn't swap. The pairs were already set and based on ability. There was no getting out of this one.

She didn't respond to Ron and instead gritted her teeth, gathering her books and crossing the classroom to where Draco and his fellow Slytherins sat. She had crossed into enemy territory; her temporary stay was as unnerving for her as much as it was for the Slytherins. Her legs were shaking as she sat down at his desk. Most other pairs were made up of two people from the same house.

As a lone speck of red in a swarm of green and with the Slytherins shooting her unsettling glares, she was on high alert.

"Granger, are you going to open your books?" Malfoy prompted her. It sounded dangerously… cordial?

_Where was the hostility?_ Immediately her paranoia was ramped up another couple of levels.

"Shut up Malfoy" she growled. They were going to have to use Malfoy's cauldron so Hermione began crushing, slicing and juicing the ingredients which they would have to boil as Malfoy tampered with the heating underneath his cauldron to set the correct temperature.

She had finished her task before him. She may have been impatient but with her nerves already on edge she didn't feel keen on helping or correcting him. She didn't realise she had been thrumming her fingers impatiently on the desk when Draco's head snapped up, "Can I help you?"

Startled Hermione just ducked her head and insisted that no, it was nothing. _Since when did Granger act so demure?_

It was not nothing, both she and Draco knew that.

It was the awkward knowledge of what had transpired between the two of them months earlier in a classroom very much like this one, on a desk very much like the one they were standing next to right now which made the atmosphere so taut.

With a huge effort, Malfoy's pride could be put aside and he could ask for help. Pride may have been an integral part of his character but ambition always outweighed pride. Even if it meant asking a muggle-born to work with him.

He looked down at her wrist and saw that her finger tapping was to cover the nervous shaking of her hands. _Was she scared of him?_ Surely he had never given her the idea that he would hurt her… then again the way his housemates were all looking at her like she was a piece of meat couldn't exactly be comforting.

Darting his eyes around the room before placing a hand over hers for the briefest of seconds, he leaned down to her ear and muttered a request that she help him.

"This godforsaken flame won't adjust correctly for me. Have a go, I can tell you're itching to tamper with it" he said with a slight laugh in his voice. He then stood back from his desk and looked at Hermione expectantly. "Well?"

The rest of the lesson continued with a light atmosphere, Draco's small jests having the effect of easing the tension in her shoulders. She stood shoulder to shoulder with him at the cauldron, stirring in the ingredients. He muttered a small incantation and then she continued to stir the mixture, which was thinning and becoming the clear thin water-like substance which they were supposed to be making.

At the front of the classroom, Slughorn was lecturing his students, although almost all of them ignored him as they panicked that their potions had the wrong consistency, looked like oatmeal or were bright pink.

"If your potion looks thin, watery and clear then you have successfully brewed Veritaserum. Now don't worry if you haven't, it is a highly advanced potion. I only expected a few to be capable…"

Slughorn continued to talk.

"Then why the bloody hell did he make us do it?" Hermione heard Ron question loudly on the other side of the classroom. Luckily for Ron, Slughorn was too involved in his own speech to notice the outburst.

"…and so to test the potion is correctly brewed you must test the scent immediately after it has been brewed. Can anyone tell me why the check must be done immediately?" said Slughorn.

He looked directly at Hermione as her hand raised into the air. He nodded and prompted, "Miss Granger?"

"After a few minutes the scent of the potion becomes very faint and indistinct. The potion must mature for a full lunar phase, after which the potion is odourless."

The professor grinned, "5 points to Gryffindor! Yes, so if you believe your potion is ready, pour it into a vial and then smell it. Now I don't want to give you too many clues, so turn to page 284 in your textbook to find out what the odour should be"

Draco had turned to the page but Hermione already knew. They had to smell sulphur. The sulphurous scent was indicative of the potency of the potion, a.k.a. how successful the potion had been brewed.

Draco ladled the clear liquid into the flask he had produced from his bag and sniffed the potion, wrinkling his nose. That was a good sign.

He flicked the clasp back down on the lid to trap the smell in the vial, and stepped closer to her.

Everyone else was packing up as no one else had managed to successfully produce the Truth potion, not even Harry. Him and Ron were bickering over his stupid 'Half-Blood Prince's' textbook while they scourgified their cauldrons and packed spare ingredients away.

Slughorn then announced he was just popping into his office and would be back in five minutes.

As the bustle continued around them, as people cleared away their cauldrons and walked round the classroom meandering to find their friends, chatting in groups. Hermione stared up at Draco. He moved into her space and lifted his hand containing the vial to her. Her heart stammered slightly at his proximity. She leaned closer and he saw her hand move up, he thought, to take the bottle from his outstretched hand. Instead she gripped his wrist and pulled his arm towards her to test the potion. If she was honest, she was just trying to tug him closer to her.

Seconds later she lowered their arms out of her eyeline and stared into those intense grey eyes. His furrowed brows looked puzzled, but not hesitant. In fact he leaned down, his wide shoulders towering over her.

Then, suddenly, all hell broke loose.

"Get off her!" she heard Ron bellow as a hex hit Malfoy. His body jolted forward from the impact of the spell. The potion Draco had been holding between them exploded from the open vial all over Hermione's white school shirt as he lost his grip on it.

Draco whipped round to face Ron, growled as he armed himself with his wand and was about to do some serious damage when he heard wolf-whistles from the Slytherin's.

Thoroughly confused, he turned to his comrades and saw that Hermiones shirt had been soaked through. The girl was positively fuming and was about to hex him because her top had turned see through and his sleazy friends were eyeing her like a piece of meat, for a completely different reason than before. Her underwear could clearly be seen and everyone was just gawping at the girl who had been so modest. This glimpse seemed to shock everyone.

At least the Gryffindor boys respected her enough to avert their eyes, but the snakes were looking at her greedily and she just wanted to tear Draco's head off. Actually she wanted to tear whoever hexed Draco's head off.

But for now she was just trying to cover herself by crossing her arms across her chest. She nervously tugged her hair behind her ear- a nervous habit that Draco remembered- and shuffled her feet a little. Regardless of this, he could see her temper bristling and the ferocity in her eyes made her a formidable opponent. He wanted to protect her from them but at the moment he was just trying to escape her famous venomous glare which usually came right before she hexed someone straight into the hospital wing.

"What the hell Malfoy? All over my shirt?" she growled at him, clearly recovering from her brief lapse in wariness. "Are you not capable of one simple task! Just hold the vial still and don't chuck it all over me, it's not that difficult!" She then whipped round on Ron and pointed at her friend from across the classroom, "And you! You're such a moron Ronald Weasley! Are you really so inept with your wand that you can't control yourself for one second?"

This resulted in some sniggers from the rest of the class, and Hermione relented, not wanting to give anyone more ammunition against Ron. After all he was already a "blood traitor".

Having worked herself up into a worse state she was now feeling ruthless. She refused to take anyone's crap. Her cloak was across the classroom in her old seat. She braced herself and made a stride towards it.

Before she could get much momentum, she heard a snarl from Draco who had stepped in front of her to cover her from the class's gazes. He turned back around to face her then, and enveloped her, still concealing her from everyone in the room. Turning his head back to everyone he grunted, "Get back to work, now." The order commanded the room who, though still curious, went back to work.

He then lifted his jumper over his head. His shirt came up with his jumper to reveal a strong and toned stomach. Almost reaching out to touch the revealed skin she looked down at her feet and tried not to get caught gazing by anyone, especially Malfoy. The grey woollen material was then shoved at her quickly, and she stared down at it for a second.

She could just go and get her robe but that was on the other side of the classroom, and she couldn't stand the hungry eyes surrounding her for much longer. Pulling it over her head, her petite figure was engulfed in the massive jumper and the sleeves extended far past her hands. She was overwhelmed with the smell of Draco's musky scent and sank further into the hugely comfy jersey.

He gave her a worried glance and a small smile to reassure her.

They then turned back to their cauldron, both of them staring down anyone who looked at them funnily. Ron looked puzzled by her agreement to wear Malfoys jumper and Harry looked furious. Pansy Parkinson was also glaring at her, when she thought that really, she should be glaring at her friend.

_Oh how convenient_ Hermione thought as Slughorn emerged from his office too late to know anything had been amiss. When they handed in their potion (collected from the remaining liquid in the Cauldron) for Slughorn's assessment, Draco nodded at her encouragingly.

"I do hope Sluggie was right Granger."

Hermione quirked an eyebrow at him so he explained, "I hope you prove me wrong… I hope you raise our grade."

What exactly did Draco mean? It sounded like he wasn't talking about himself. He wasn't even threatening her, so why would he say she hopes she proves herself? Was Draco hoping she would prove his fellow Slytherin's wrong? Hoping she would prove his public complaints wrong?

She clearly thought too much of him. He would never.

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><p>Exiting the eventful Potions lesson, everyone was eyeing Hermione and Draco as they crossed back over the metaphorical line drawn between them, returning to their separate groups.<p>

Ron and Harry were glaring at her back as the trio walked in silence, and then the moment Hermione had been dreading came. Harry was the first to cut through the tense atmosphere.

"What- 'Mione what was all that about?" he said, with his hands nervously in his robe pockets but clenching his jaw.

_Oh my Godric how do I even begin to explain this?_

"Draco and I are the best in the class. We work well together, there was no need for Ron to hex him!" fumed Hermione. _Go on the offensive, have them trying to defend themselves so they won't question you. The best defence is offence._

"I'm sorry, I just thought he was getting close to you!" Ron mumbled as he tried to excuse himself.

"Oh! How dare the person I am working on brewing a potion with come near me! What did you think he was going to do? He couldn't bloody well go and hex me with Slughorn in the next room!" Hermione shouted as the boys walked alongside her, looking even more sheepish and remorseful by the second. _Oh praise Merlin that this is working!_

"I know it was stupid of Ron but that doesn't explain what happened afterwards" Harry continued, raising an eyebrow. He was clearly alluding to the fact Draco protected her rather than feeding her to the serpents as would be expected. His eyes glanced briefly at the jumper underneath Hermione's robes, Draco's jumper, which he said she could return anytime.

Then Hermione felt a flame of rage in her chest at the accusation. "Well you two did bugger all didn't you? If one of you had offered up your jumpers or even just handed me my robe which by the way, was right next to you, then I wouldn't have had to take his bloody jumper, would I?"

At least they had the decency to look abashed. "I wasn't exactly going to stand there for everyone to ogle me, so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and change out of this shirt." She spat her last words to the two boys, "I'll see you two at lunch."

Three boys watched her march down the corridor, hair flowing down her back and arms swinging with her hands in fists.

"Godric forbid anyone meets her on her way, they will have hell to pay" Ron muttered.

Down the corridor from them, Draco Malfoy had just walked out the classroom after lingering behind with his housemates as they always did. He glanced and cautiously watched her disappear round the corner at the end of the corridor, and then heard one of his friends say her name, "Who knew Granger had such a good body?"

Blaise, the boy who had spoken, and the other Slytherins still had a hungry look in their eyes which made Malfoy uncomfortable. He started in the opposite direction to the two Gryffindor boys and his friends followed.

"Draco seemed to know something about it" Pansy said snarkily, clearly jealous of the way Draco had treated Hermione. Pansy had been vying after him for two years now and he hadn't so much as given her a second glance. _Oh here goes… since when did she get so observant anyway?_

"That's stupid Pansy, she's a mudblood" Draco said disdainfully, rolling his eyes as though it was self-explanatory. To the Slytherins it was though, a mudblood would never be able to gain the affection of a pureblood. It simply wasn't possible to them, and that was that.

The others nodded in agreement, but Pansy pushed the point. "If she's only a mudblood, why did you cover her?"

His patience was being tested and he wasn't sure how long he could suppress the cold anger he felt run up his spine. "Pansy for Salazar's sake," he gritted his teeth. "First of all, these idiots were being a shame to their family names, they couldn't seem to keep their eyes off of her," he glowered at the other boys. Continuing their walk to their next class he said "Secondly, I have some respect for women, she may be a mudblood but no one should never be subject to that. I thought you would understand that, Parkinson, maybe even appreciate it."

"I suppose he's right about us, she shouldn't have been able to have that power over us," Goyle agreed. _Oh how very melodramatic Goyle… no one can help but find her attractive and you're here talking about 'power' as if your lust could destroy the Death eater movement._

After huffing to herself, Pansy's scowl was undone with a charming (and fake) smile from Draco.

As he walked along, he mulled over him and Granger.

Just imagine what they would think of him if they knew the truth. Imagine what they would do, not just to him, but to her.

That thought was what kept him away from her that night in the library. That thought was what had caused him to leave Hermione Granger. He had lost one of the few real relationships he had ever had - but it was worth it to keep her safe.

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><p><strong>Again thanks for reading! Fave or review because it helps me get chapters written faster. Also let me know if you don't like these fun facts, I literally just do them to explain the holes in my writing!<strong>

**FUN FACTS:**

**1) Veritaserum is only described as being odourless but I figured that because it needs to mature for a certain amount of time then before its maturation period it may have a scent. I just needed an excuse for them to get close so he could pour some potion on her to be completely honest, and I wasn't going to have Draco trip. In my head he is too suave and carries himself too well for him to be clumsy. **

**2) Rons hex was NOT out of jealousy. In this story there will be no Romione, not even hints at it ever being existant. There will be no Ron-hate either sorry. Also, I wanted to show the friendship, and the way the trio protect and care about each other, to show how difficult this would be for Hermione. Gosh, there's just so much angst.**

**3) I know I stray from canon in the fact that Slughorn should not be here in Fifth Year. But oh well, I needed a teacher who was sympathetic to Hermione and wanting to unite the houses. That certainly was not Snape. Also I know Ron's relationship with Brown only begins in Sixth Year, but I assume that she probably showed an interest in him before Sixth Year given that she was all kinds of crazy about him. **

**4) I tried to show Hermione was uncomfortable about her shirt, but also wanted to get at the idea that she would not cower. While it was wrong for her to have to feel unsafe and uncomfortable, we all know Hermione is a raging feminist and would not feel shame at having herself exposed and would not accept being sexualised. She would probably just be annoyed that it wasn't by choice. **

**REVIEW , FAVE, FOLLOW! Thank you all so much!**


	6. The Shrieking Shack

**Author's Note: I really don't think I am ever going to be happy with anything that I post, so here we are again... I hope you like it though.**

**Thanks to those who have reviewed, the readers of this fic are fab! I'm gonna be that person again and ask you to fave, review and follow if you enjoyed it!**

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><p>She still hadn't returned Draco's jumper and everyone went home for the Easter holidays tomorrow. She lay spread out on her bed, exhausted, with Ginny Weasley curled up at her feet. They had both just finished their last classes of the spring term and were lying in comfortable quiet in Hermione's dormitory, neither of them awake enough or needing to think of unnecessary conversation to fill the silence.<p>

The other Gryffindor fifth year girls had gone down to the Common Room. Lavender Brown had gone to say goodbye to everyone as she was returning home for the week and Patel, Hornsby and Polum went down to play some Wizard chest.

As Hermione began to drift towards a far off dream, away from the war into that hazy place, her journey was cut short by Ginny's voice. "'Mione, are you coming tomorrow?" the girl asked, unusually drowsily for the fiery red-head who was usually first to yank Hermione by the hair into ridiculous and exciting situations. She heard her friend's exhaustion and boredom, and although she was previously planning on blowing off the secret meet up tomorrow, she found herself nodding slowly and mumbling her confirmation.

Yes, apparently Hermione had agreed to the outing which all of her friends were going on. They had all agreed to meet up in the Shrieking Shack, after realising in third year that it was not in fact haunted, as the rumours had suggested. Finally having convinced their mates that it had long since been abandoned, Harry and Ron believed there was nothing else to do but head down there with Fire Whiskey and have a laugh. She was sure they were breaking about fifty school rules, but recently she had been feeling especially empty… and her response to emptiness was going to be to get her adrenaline pumping. It seemed the only solution with Draco ignoring her; the boy who usually got her blood pumping and her heart fluttering.

Ginny sat up on her knees and pounced towards Hermione, losing energy in the middle of her leap and flopping on top of her. The two girls giggled as Ginny rolled onto her back, lying next to Hermione and staring up at the scarlet and gold tapestry draped over the bed. The two girls just lay like that for a while, in the ease of the moment, and then Ginny said "Thanks, you're the best you know."

It wasn't a confidence thing, Hermione knew Ginny had enough confidence. Perhaps a bit too much sometimes, Hermione chuckled, as she thought of her tearing down her brother's arguments against her playing Quidditch and the bold way she flirted with boys with a one hundred percent success rate. No, the issue was that she would have felt guilty about leaving Hermione. Ginny had told her earlier that she would rather stay in the Common Room with her, but Hermione knew Ginny would like it even better if they went to the Shrieking Shack.

So yet again Hermione was dragged into another one of her fellow Gryffindor friends' hairbrain schemes to get them expelled, but this time she was completely apathetic towards it.

She would usually be nervous, scared, annoyed, irritated, exasperated or at least a little excited. But she couldn't find the strength to be. And it was because of that stupid boy.

Ginny stared over and saw a distance in her best friend's eyes as Hermione sighed quietly. Ginny was waiting for her to buck up the courage to tell her what was wrong or just waiting for Hermione to need her. She would wait, but she was becoming increasingly worried about her friend and that faraway look she was getting more and more recently. This wasn't just the war. No, that was a different kind of damaging, which Hermione had been experiencing since her entrance into the wizarding world. No, this recent change was heartache, Ginny was sure of it.

She planned to study Hermione over the holidays when she and their fellow Gryffindors would be staying at the castle. Ginny felt like she needed to help and was tired of being incapable of it.

For now she was just exhausted. Just as Ginny thought this, Hermione spoke.

"Well we probably should be getting some rest for tomorrow. It sounds like we'll be out all night," she muttered. She felt the weight of her friend leave the mattress as Hermione rolled away and made her way across the room to her shared bathroom, and then half-heartedly joked, "Godric save me."

Ginny took that as her queue to leave, and planned to find her twin brothers instead of going to her dormitory to sleep like her friend advised. Regardless, Hermione looked ragged and sleep deprived, so she hopped off the bed and out of the room leaving Hermione to her thoughts.

* * *

><p>Draco sat on the firm, large couches of the Slytherin Common Room which was candle-lit and now almost empty, except for Draco and his year group. The air in the dungeons had a bite to it, as the chill always seeped around the room seeing as they were underground. His arms draped over the back of the chair as he watched his friends circled around the table, watching Zabini and Goyle play wizards chess. He held a straight face even when the others flinched at the sound of smashing china, at a pawn being destroyed by a knight.<p>

Even though he had planned to return home, his parents had told him to stay at school. The Dark Lord had plans for Lucius and he had begun work on them, so his mother had insisted that Draco stay at Hogwarts during the holidays to avoid his involvement.

He had sent her a terse reply about the fact his freedoms are seriously restricted at school and he finds it extremely damaging to his mental wellbeing having to stay in a school full of blockheads, blood traitors and mudbloods. He felt a sting in his chest that the last phrase of his letter was the most dishonest thing he had ever said to his mother.

He had just wanted to get home, away from the Slytherin's who irritated him more and more these days, and away from Granger, because he knew he was at breaking point. If he saw her anymore, she would confuse his loyalties even more severely than she already had. That was certainly not okay.

Even if they irritated him, they were the closest thing he had to friends and he wasn't going to sit in this dank castle all holiday long. He might as well ask them, even if he planned on going by himself regardless.

"Boys, I was thinking of going to the Three Broomsticks tomorrow?" Malfoy asked uninterestedly. Hopefully if he didn't seem interested they wouldn't bother going.

"I'm up for it" Crabbe said, and the rest of the boys nodded along. With no regard for the school rules, they agreed with him. All they ever did was agree with him, and with their parents. They didn't question anything. Malfoy found them exhausting.

"What do you expect us girls to do while you're all gone?" crooned Pansy, obviously expecting an invitation.

He hadn't even thought about inviting the Slytherin girls but now they were all looking at him, and they were a formidable group. He was not going to piss them off.

"Of course, you girls are all welcome" Draco added, extending the invitation to the four other girls and Pansy. Well this just became a whole lot more effort than previously expected.

That night he lay in his room dreading the trip to Hogsmeade tomorrow and wondering why he had even bothered in the first place. He had got himself into this mess and now would have to spend a night out pretending to be enjoying himself… and pretending to enjoy yourself was a lot more exhausting than actually enjoying yourself. One of the few things he enjoyed these days was Hermione. Why did he enjoy riling her up and arguing with her? How could he want to protect her and be intimidated by her at the same time? How did that work? Arguing with her seemed to be the only thing that he very actively took part anymore, and as he drifted off to sleep, he kept questioning, why her?

* * *

><p>She and Ginny were sitting next to each other in a circle of her fellow classmates, cross legged on the layer of dust and dirt which covered the Shack's floorboards. She had seen the others shudder as they entered the shack, eyeing the torn wall paper and clawed furniture as they all filtered in. Hermione, Harry and Ron were easy enough while moving around the place, knowing that Remus no longer transformed here on full moons. Harry sat down comfortably, and cracked open a bottle, so everyone followed his example as he handed round drinks. People there were those in her year apart from Ginny. All the boys were applauding Neville who had been dared to kiss Luna. She had promptly grabbed him and kissed him when he had asked so adorably whether he could.<p>

Neville was the perfect gentlemen but his fellow Gryffindor boys could not claim the same. They were all nudging, wolf-whistling, jeering…Hermione just rolled her eyes while Ginny looked on exasperated with their behaviour. They may have smuggled quite a lot of firewhiskey into the Shrieking Shack but that was no excuse to act like animals. When Luna and he had moved away from each other, blushing, Neville looked rather dazed as he collected his winnings, having completed his dare. Trying to refuse the money being thrown his way, Luna joked that if he didn't take it she would, lightening the mood again with her offhand comment.

They continued talking amongst themselves, sharing laughs, betting and daring. No mention was made of the war. They all conveniently forgot it. To be fair, Hermione thought, it's understandable that for one night they just want to pretend that it isn't happening. That it isn't real.

But it was real. She had needed to surround the Shack with major defensive spells and shields and they all had their wands at the ready, in preparation for an attack. Even though no one mentioned it, the fear it had brought into their lives was alive and lurking in the shadows, reminding Hermione that there were people dying and they were all just sitting here like stupid kids and letting it happen.

She knew she couldn't do anything about that, but she didn't exactly have to be happy about it.

She didn't want to be morbidly depressed about it either though, which led to her joining in with the excessive drinking games and actually beginning to enjoy herself when Seamus, who was sat between Dean's legs, dared Hermione to kiss Ron.

She jolted and sat up straight, clearly uncomfortable with the suggestion. Ron was equally so, shouting off the jeering crescendo and declaring that they were "just friends, bloody hell, be quiet you lot!".

She relaxed slightly, but then Seamus upped his dare and said "Five galleons says you won't kiss Ron." He had only just won those five galleons for himself and he would never bet that much unless he was absolutely certain that she hated Ron (which she obviously didn't) or certain that she was adverse to any kind of romantic interaction, or just plain inexperienced? There was absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to kiss a boy, and nothing wrong with not kissing Ron, absolutely nothing. But she _had_ kissed people. Why was this a concept that the Gryffindor boys seemed unable to fathom? Hermione Granger and attractive didn't seem to go well together for any of them, they preferred to ignore it completely. She was thankful that they weren't objectifying her, but denying any ability she had to be attractive was downright insulting, and not to mention problematic. They had boxed her into the stereotype of the nerdy girl, and so didn't want to recognise her as good-looking. She wasn't her own person. They had categorised her and she was confined to a type.

But Hermione was not one to conform, and she grinned at the thought of making them uncomfortable.

Smirking to herself, she looked at Seamus challengingly and strutted around the edge of the circle and sat down next to Ron. The room had gone still, the only noises heard being the creaking of floorboards and the howling of the wind outside. Everyone was slightly in shock and unsure of how to react.

She turned to Ron and looked at him, and he stared back at her apprehensively. Ron began stuttering, "Look 'Mione, it's not that you're not great or anything but-"

"Don't be stupid Ron," she chided, "You know I'm not interested, you've literally just heard Seamus dare me. But I really want those galleons, we could split our winnings?" Hermione muttered this quietly in his ear.

Ron grinned at her, suddenly feeling a whole lot more comfortable.

"Deal" he nodded, as the hoots and teasing jokes rose in volume around them, with their friends not realising their private conversation was in fact completely based on cheating Finnigan out of his money.

Then Ron leaned forward and kissed her. The room went silent for a second and then there was an uproar of cheers and laughs and jokes sent their way. There were even a few exclamations of "finally!" but Hermione ignored this as she inclined forward in an uncomfortable lean.

This kiss could never affect their friendship. However nice it was, that's all it was. Nice. The fact that she was aware of her surroundings and able to focus on what her fellow Gryffindors were doing and saying, and not utterly overwhelmed by the moment, indicated this. It was just nice. He had big, soft lips which were comfortable… and not impassioned at all.

As she pulled away she shouted down the noise, "Oh shut it you lot!"

She held out her hand expectantly to Seamus who still looked shocked, and waited as he reluctantly dropped the wizarding coins into her hand. "Thank you Seamus" she said smugly, as she dropped half of the coins into Ron's hand and high-fived him jokingly.

"Well my work here is done," she announced, getting to her feet and striding back across the circle to Ginny, who just cocked her head at her friend's antics.

Snuggling down into her spot again, crossing her legs and picking her drink back up, she watched as the room's separate conversations restarted in small huddles and she began to zone out. Then Dean's voice cut through the noise and grabbed her attention from across the cold, dark room.

"So how was Ronald, for your first kiss?" Dean said in jest as he wound his arms around his boyfriends stomach. Seamus smiled at him, thankful that Dean knew how much he had wanted to ask that question.

"What makes you think that was my first, Thomas?" she raised an eyebrow, while smirking as all of the Gryffindor's jaws dropped wide open, and Seamus practically choked on his drink.

Ron chuckled as he said "I'll confirm that I definitely wasn't her first." The side of her mouth quirked up at the compliment as everyone else's eyes grew wider.

She didn't realise she had gained a good-girl image to the extent that the suggestion she had kissed someone sent shockwaves through her group of friends. She just didn't want anyone in her business and Harry and Ron went squeamish whenever she went near the subject of fancying someone. _If only they knew_, she chuckled to herself knowingly.

Leaving them all slightly bewildered, she began a game of truth or dare, because what else was there to do at a get-together with fellow teenagers. Following Seamus' example, she dared Lucy Hornsby to kiss Harry (although she almost hit herself when she saw Ginny's head drop). They did, although Harry hadn't seemed especially excited at the prospect and then Lucy dared Seamus to moony them all (which he did rather shamelessly). He then dared Longbottom to kiss Jessica Polum, who refused, only half-joking when she said that he was "Luna's man for the night".

"Alright then love, forfeit means you have to take a shot" Seamus ruled.

The night went on and the number of forfeits Hermione took were adding up because Seamus kept daring her to run around the streets of Hogsmeade naked. She was already pretty drunk when she realised that he had wanted her to refuse every time and have to take the forfeit. She had played right into his hands. _Oh well,_ she shrugged as she took another shot, she would never had said yes to running around in the nude anyway so her fate was sealed: she was getting very, very drunk tonight.

Harry finally dared her to do something reasonable, or perhaps it was only in her intoxicated state that it seemed reasonable. Either way, she took a final shot, for no real reason other than it felt like it was going to be needed. "You're on Potter," she accepted as she stood to face the challenge.

* * *

><p>The evening was freezing. Draco saw his breath mist in the cold air as he stood alone outside 'The Three Broomsticks', leaning against the wall next to the door to the pub. He slouched and stuck his hands in his trouser pockets, contemplating how long he could stay outside before someone came to look for him. He had only just escaped from the Pansy who just was not getting the hint that he was not interested. She had insisted on sitting next to him as the Slytherins had gathered around a large table, and for the rest of the night had been very handsy with him. He was sure that her attempts at flirting would be welcomed by anyone else at the table but apparently she had her sights set on him and was not taking to for an answer. That was never okay in his opinion.<p>

He had just needed to escape and clear his head. Sometimes the fact he was surrounded by people who hated muggleborns messed with his head, their ideas seeped into his mind like poison and debilitated his ability to think clearly.

Running his hands through his hair he stood up and decided he needed a walk. Meandering through the streets of Hogsmeade was therapeutic and the rhythm of his steps soothed his previously agitated figure. Turning a corner, and walking up between two rows of abandoned and derelict houses, he began to wonder how he would navigate his way back to his friends as his surroundings became more and more deserted and derelict. Apathetic as he was towards their night out, it would not do for him to be gone too long. As he reached the final house, he realised he had followed the road which led to the Shrieking Shack and shuddered at the stories he had heard about the place.

Turning back, his hands buried in his coat pockets and his jaw buried in his dark green scarf, he carefully started to make his way back to the bustling town of Hogsmeade which seemed much more alive than anything out here. The end of his nose had begun to chill and he was sure his cheeks were cold as ice.

But then he heard shouts from the Shack, and some whistles and even some laughs. It was haunted …but these noises didn't seem sinister enough to be the howls heard by nearby villagers. In fact, they didn't seem sinister at all.

Draco was deeply conflicted between his instinctive curiosity which told him to investigate, and his common sense which told him that braving the dangers of the Shack alone was not rational. So instead he settled for standing in the shadows of the wall of the nearby houses, observing the supposedly empty house and listening to the disorderly cheers from inside.

This definitely wasn't typical activity for the haunted building. Perhaps unknowing students had ventured in there and were putting themselves at risk of the dangers they faced in there.

Draco had just decided that he was going to intervene when he saw one of the previously boarded up windows being wrenched open. Watching carefully he saw a few students gather around the window. They didn't look particularly scarred by the dark spirits that were supposedly in the Shack. In fact they looked extremely happy. Happy to a point where it made Draco suspicious.

Then he saw a girl hook her leg over the window sill and move her body outside, moving from the darkness to the artificial light created by the street lamps outside. She began to lower herself down from the first floor window of the Shack, straining to find footholds in the rickety structure of the building.

He smirked to himself and tutted as he recognised the mass of curly hair the girl had, muttering with admiration; "Bloody hell Granger, you've got some nerve."

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks for reading! I know not much happened but, as I hope you could tell, it's all leading up to the next chapter.<strong>

**FUN FACTS:**

**1) Okay so I write stuff during the Marauders Era as well (a lot of it is on my tumblr) and a lot of it involves these kind of gatherings, where they do what normal teenagers do like drink and do stupid stuff that they will regret in the morning. I just kind of thought why wouldn't the current Gryffindors do it as well. I would've gone for having this all in the Room of Requirement but then that's no fun and Draco wouldn't have been around there and so that would make the whole point of the chapter redundant. Also, don't tell me the Slytherin's wouldn't have taken trips to Hogsmeade in secret cos they are sneaky buggers and Slughorn is the most laid back head of house. **

**2) The Ginny and Hermione friendship is so important to me. Girl friendship in general is so important and precious. **

**3) I know I said in the previous chapter there would be no Romione, and I stand by that. There was absolutely no implications that there was a romantic relationship between Ron and Hermione. If anything I made that clearer in this chapter. Sorry if you didn't like it but seriously, no Romione. None. **

**4) Seamus and Dean. Yeah they're a couple. Don't tell me they aren't super gay for each other. Just one of my ships casually thrown into this story cos I love them together and I ship it a bit too hard. **

**5) Don't place a bet on my girl Hermione. She will screw you over. She kissed Ron not because she was interested (as stated before) but also not just because she was indignant at basically being called frigid. She would've just waved that off because literally she does not care, she's been called so many names, what's another to add to the list. She does it to try and prove to the boys that a girl can be bookish and she can be beautiful, which I think is what JKR meant the character of Hermione to teach us. Can you tell how much I absolutely live for Hermione Jean Granger?**

**Let me know what you think of this chapter and/or what you think will happen in the next one? Thank you!**


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